I was having a conversation with ChatGPT the other day...
You know, the Music-Learning Model!
All my conversations these days start like this. And I know that’s a rather polarizing topic for many folk but for me, it’s commonplace. I love engaging with the various models out there to learn about various things - from current events like Trump’s cabinet confirmations, to nuanced healthcare questions when I can’t get my healthcare providers on the phone at the exact moment I need them, to just asinine queries that don’t seem fit for Google (though Google also now utilizes an AI summary response at the top of most search pages now too so I digress). It’s lovely and quick and tailored to exactly what I want and need so I often find myself chatting with some assistant.
Always fact check the AI though - I assume that goes without saying but please do.
Anyways, I was talking to ChatGPT this morning about a topic that I’ve sat with and explored on my own for a while - but now that I have this fun “new” tool, I figured I would engage with in the hopes of untangling the web that is my messy and nonlinear mind.
So actually, let’s start with some background. I’m pretty sure I’m tone deaf in terms of music. Mostly because I was told so by an elementary school music teacher when she couldn’t get me to sing, find, or even recognize the correct note for my solo during the summer show. She said it offhandedly and likely quite playfully but it stuck with me and for that reason, I’ve never really attached to music as a passion.
It was later clarified that Chinese is a highly tonal language so there’s no way I’m entirely tone deaf. But in response to that claim: I have many memories of my mom and I screaming and crying at one another because how could I not tell the difference between the rising second tone and dipping third tone. So maybe still tone deaf but trained to understand Chinese haha.
Anyways, despite not forming an affinity towards music, I was constantly surrounded by it. The radio, choir (the dreaded winter sings and concerts in in particular). My father’s instillation into me that musicals are these pieces of immeasurable beauty, story told through song and dance. I even memorized Selena Gomez’s “Love You Like a Love Song” and requested it be played ad nauseam. Something about the circular nature of the song scratched 2011 Hope’s head - and if I’m honest, still does today.
Of course, if anyone knows me, they know that I had a deep deep deep Kpop phase from 2015 - 2020. It was all I listened to. GOT7 was my favorite and Stray Kids was the runner-up that took over when the former left JYP. I’ve since returned back to the nest given the newest Winter Heptagon album (she says, having only listened to the title song) and its promotions. But all to say, I was in deep. I was watching fancams, purchasing group orders, dropping thousands of dollars on concert tickets and album/photo-card collection, and staying up until nighttime KST (meaning early as heck PST) for livestreams.
I was steeped in music and yet I didn’t consider myself a music person (ie. someone who liked music). We call this: denial. To the nth degree. But recently, I’ve been wondering if that’s still the case. I’m really into EDM music right now. Or really just anything, I’m trying to expand beyond what was previously a bubble of Kpop-exclusivity. Of course it all started with ChatGPT, who suggested I go back to 2012 with Zedd’s “Clarity” and that familiar tune and others like it (Avicii’s “Wake Me Up”) sent me off to the races.
So. Yes, I would say I am a music person now. And so now I guess the question is Oh Hope, when did that shift? And I would say it shifted in 2020 when I left the Kpop fandom. Informally. I quit stan Twitter basically. I still watch a couple fancams but unboxings and edits are a Hope of the past. But it’s not because I left stan Twitter and deactivated my carrd that I would say I became a music person. It’s because of a specific set of playlists on my phone that I made during this time.
As I said to ChatGPT this morning: I know, and have known, that music has a unique power to connect us to emotions and memories. Because of this, I’ve made a collection of playlists that correspond to a select set of memories in my life, and now whenever I feel sad or nostalgic, I’ll listen to the associated playlist [of the time that I’m thinking about]. So allow me to bare my musical soul to you and tell you about the playlists. They’re not particularly cleverly titled, even now as I transfer them over from Apple Music to Spotify, but I’ll tell you about them as well for some more color.
This playlist is short because a) in 2020, I did not remember and could not find what I was listening to in 2013 beyond Tegan and Sara’s Heartthrob album, and that’s still true today and b) because I have always been the type to listen to a small selection of songs on rapid repeat until I find the next iteration.
So this playlist is lovely. It calls back a memory of sunset and nighttime in Hawaii, when I was reading some enthralling (but easy, so it wasn’t an onerous task) book out on the deck facing the ocean at our hotel. I distinctly recall reading on the lounger outside and then coming inside and playing the music on my iPod before I went to sleep on the room’s pullout couch-bed. Now this memory may be terribly corrupt and/or entirely false but it’s a memory that exists in crystal clarity in my mind and these are the correlated songs.
I play this 17-minute set whenever I’m feeling nostalgic of little Hope, or seeking some…for lack of a better word, ease. It’s almost idyllic the way the memory remains in my head: I’m sure I had worries and things that stressed me out but I always look back at that time with great fondness. Especially when I play these songs in order, there’s a sense of calmness that settles over me in the instant I hear the first few notes of “How Come You Don’t Want Me Now”.
Of course, now that I’ve played this song likely 20/30 times over whenever I want to escape things, there are moments where other memories of more turbulent times flash in and out. But kind of like hypnosis, I force myself to recall Hawaii (a la Phil Coulson in Agents of SHIELD) and get the music to work its memory magic.
Another fun aside that I’ll add in here is that another Tegan and Sara album holds a lot of sentimentality for me. This one isn’t a distinct instance so it doesn’t have a playlist but their Hey, I’m Just Like You that was released in tandem with their memoir (which I’ve spoken about here) reminds me of some Food Truck Wednesdays event that my mom and I used to go to and a conference/speaking engagement that I followed her to on the UCLA (?) campus (?). I just remember walking around what felt like a college with bushes and things and also an auditorium. Funnily enough, I think both of these events pre-date the album and book’s 2019 release but that’s the magic of it all I guess, because it’s always an immediate callback.
In the heart of my fangirl era, I got to go to Korea and oh my god, it was the trip of a lifetime. GOT7 had just released what I considered for a long time to be their last really good album (now I know I just had weak taste but alas) with my favorite song by them - “Thank You” - that always tugs at my heart strings. Stray Kids had just debuted, and NCT had released their first full roster album - which was legendary at the time in the fandom.
Now. All of these things are significant to why this playlist holds such good vibes and energy for me. I got to see GOT7 at MCountdown performing for their comeback right in front of me and I remember one of the members winked at me and for the next month I replayed that moment in my head constantly. I didn’t get to see them earn any First Place wins which would’ve made my life but that’s alright because I got to go to the Stray Kids debut showcase.
We drove in straight from the airport to the showcase and if I’m honest, I hadn’t known anything about them and when I was alerted about a month beforehand, a cursory Google search to their reality show didn’t seem my speed so I was shocked by how as we entered the showcase when the first few notes of the first song began to play, how filled the place was and how booming the fans were. But it was pretty rapid, the rate that I ate my hesitations. Even my father, ever the cynic, agreed after the fact (and probably now still if I were to call him) that the showcase was freaking awesome.
I promptly went back to the hotel and throughout the week would binge their reality show to get to know them and learn their lore. I don’t think I slept at all that first night because I watched episodes 1-6 all that night. I was hooked and until 2020, you could not get the claws of their influence off of me and I could recite every fact in the book about them. Sadly, because they were new, there wasn’t a lot of content to consume or merchandise to buy while I was on the trip nor a lot of music to explore. But because they were new and from the large company of JYP, their music was being piped down every major street and store. I think within that week I listened to “4419” and “School Life” probably 20 times each. To this day, I know the lyrics and can keep pace despite having shoddy (and that’s a generous assessment) Korean.
Similar to Tegan and Sara, I have a strong connection of Stray Kids’ second album because I was staying with my grandma that week. I stayed up until 5am to watch the music video as soon as it dropped and I was loyal, I streamed the music video nonstop for the first 24 hours (always refreshing and re-logging into YouTube after each individual watch so as to not be read as a bot and get my hard-earned views dropped) and listened to only that album for the whole week. Following my grandma to the bank, to her tennis group, everywhere - “Voices” follows me in my dreams sometimes because I would doze in the car and at night with my earbuds still in and on.
Finally, I also got the chance to visit the SMTown Co-Ex building that had just recently been built. I recall being obsessed with NCT’s Mark at the time and any NCTzen knows the bit of how he was in every subunit so of course, I was obsessed with anything NCT. I recall eating some overly sweet drink and dessert at the cafe because the cup and plate were collectable items cast with their graphics and signatures. And 2018 overall, was the year to be a fan of NCT. Their Empathy album, like the Stray Kids one, was everywhere. I recall picking up a copy of the physical album at each store to see which place was the cheapest. Of course, it was all cheaper than the 100% markup that the US stores had so I was kind of willing to buy whichever but I was rightfully encouraged to find the best deal.
Overall, my time in Seoul is a mixed bag to look back on. While I had the time of my life without a doubt, I kind of feel as if I was in a cult when I reminisce and I wince at the cost of that period of my life as well. I also don’t really love the music anymore - so I revert back to the playlist to be able to visit the memories and experience more than the enjoyment of the music.
Another short playlist, this one’s a bit of a cheat because it up-cycles another existing playlist. Whenever I go skiing, I compile a set of my most recent favorite songs and loop them as my tunes on the slopes. These four songs are the ones that stuck with me from one particular trip that I took with a collection of my friends and their families.
What’s special about this playlist is that each of the four songs has a specific correlated memory. Hwasa’s song was the first song that was played each day because it was the first song of playlist - at the time, I was not an advocate for the shuffle button (I’m still not). So her presence was omnipotent throughout the trip, despite my actual initial fuzziness as to whether I liked the song. It wore me down pretty quickly - I think I like her rasp? I don’t know, I don’t actually often reach for this playlist, it’s more of a moment in time that I like to know I can reference but don’t often do.
“Call Your Name” is a more sad song and has a more sad memory associated with it, sadly. I recall that a lot of my memories surrounding this trip are fun to look back on now but I also recall that I felt very isolated whilst on the trip. I remember a lot of teenage girl drama and therefore being uncomfortable on the trip. That unease is what’s personified in the song. The NU’EST song kind of serves as the turn-over I guess. I’m a very conflict avoidant person so during the trip, I would just turn on some music, tune out everyone else’s (and even my own) voices with a song like this. Of course, both of these songs are also part of the Produce 101 season 2 universe so they carry some more sentimentality but only vaguely so.
“Wow Thing”, like Hwasa’s song, would play pretty consistently, but in the middle of a ski session so it would come on during a run and all of the sudden there’s more wind in my sails and I’m bumping and jamming on the slopes. I love this song. At the time, it felt so girl power because of it’s collection of my favorite members from my favorite girl groups, and some who not my favorites but I can accept they’re very talented haha.
You don’t have my calendar so I’m not doxxing myself. But I am going to tell you the significance of March 14, 2019. Although it’s still not doxxing myself because it was 5 years ago and also that’s not the definition of doxxing. Ah, alas. On March 14, 2019, I flew to Atlanta Georgia as part of a debate tournament. Novice Nationals actually, so it was pretty darn stinking cool. Too bad I had the worst experience of my teenage life at the time. Like so bad that to this day, if I’m having a bad day, I play “She’s In The Rain” and drown my emotions. It’s a strong correlation in my mind, along with Topp Dogg’s “Rainy Day”.
Anyways. Let’s gossip. So in 2019, I was in middle school. I was in eighth grade and I liked a boy. And he liked me! We both liked Kpop and we talked often. We were also really close as friends so life was really good for fourteen year old Hope for the beginning of the school year. I can tell you just how good because I had gotten Snapchat that year and thus I chronicled my life in my saved memories in oversaturated filters. But yes, I have a distinct memory of preparing for some holiday event (because I was part of student government that year) in one of the classrooms when I got a text from said guy being like “Do you want to be my girlfriend,” in the cheesy way that young young children do.
Now, again. Young young children. He was the first (second if we’re being particular but we’re ignoring the other guy before him) guy I liked and I assume vice versa so it was uncharted territory. I remember him saying that we could only date at school and quietly because his mother couldn’t find out. She’d forbade him and his siblings to date until college. Note this, it’s important!
I was small and like didn’t care about anything besides the fact that the guy I liked liked me back so I was down for whatever. Not like it all meant anything anyways. So that was that. I was the happiest version of myself I could’ve been in winter of 2018/2019. I had a boyfriend! We texted constantly, we talked even more and like, what else was a boyfriend at that age besides a really close friend.
Oh yes, boyfriends and girlfriends kiss. Now, if you’ve read any of these essays and know me as a friend, you know I enjoy a cool air of mystery around myself. I don’t love sharing things and I have done a lot of cool and odd things in my life that I don’t share. Some of it because they’re weird and some of it because I don’t want to brag or whatever. Anyways, this boy had thought I had already had my first kiss and so I just never corrected him. It was cool to be experienced I guess. But now, he had never had his first kiss (let it be known, me hecking either) so he was nervous. SO darn nervous. For a month, he and I would text plans as to how it would go down.
One day we’d nailed it down. It would happen in front of the lockers one day before school when no one else was around. Cute, romantic, blah blah. He texted me that morning telling me he had all but inhaled his toothpaste to ensure he was all fresh and clean and had mints/mouthwash/gum if I wanted any. We were all set…for nothing to happen. He chickened out (I don’t know how my conflict avoidant self would’ve handled it all if he hadn’t to be honest) and we kind of just didn’t talk about it.
It wasn’t too awkward because a week later, he broke up with me. And the kicker at the time was that it was over text! He said everything classic: “It’s not you, it’s me” and that he just wasn’t ready for a relationship - to rebel against his mother’s wishes. Now, I wasn’t too torn up about this because we remained friends and we still kept in close touch and had shared interests and extracurriculars. Nothing really changed besides the label.
Until March 14, 2019. The day the debate team headed down south to Georgia. That debate tournament was hell because the entire time, my ex boyfriend was glued to another girl. He was chatting her up on the plane, he and her shared earbuds to listen to music, and he and her shared the bed together when all like ten of us got together at night in the hotel room to have a movie night. Friends will know this as the moment everything in my life shifted because I learned about the bonding power of Scott Pilgrim Versus the World.
But favorite movie aside, I was livid. And not to toot my own horn but so was everyone else on the debate team - because in middle school, everyone was in everyone’s business. I recall a photo circulating of them sitting in bed together made it back home and my friends there were shocked on my behalf. So for that entire weekend in Georgia, I had to play it cool. I had to be the girl that did not care (because uh, aforementioned air of mystery) while inside my mind was running a mile a minute: what about his mother’s forbiddance???
It rained a little in Georgia so I thought it would be fun to play “She’s In The Rain” whenever it did but my negative emotions essentially infiltrated the song and now it’s my go-to sad song. Once that correlation was made, I looked for similar songs so I could fester in my emotions and brood - and that’s how I found the other three since I was never a K-RnB listener typically. And I listened to those four songs on loop for the entire weekend and often whenever I’m feeling romantically woe.
This is all just a funny story now because all three of us are friends. Not super close but enough that we’ve talked about how it all went down. Turns out she had similar dating limitations placed on her by her family so they were just really close friends…who liked each other. Just like how he and I were.
Now moving back in time, I know I just said we’re trying to forget the existence of the first guy. But turns out he has a playlist (kind of) and also it’s in the same topic trend of debate so I want to share. Spring 2017 was when I was about to graduate elementary school. And so during this time, as we established with the Hawaii playlist and in the introduction section, much of the music I listened to was simply what was popular on the radio or what my father loved. Hence the copious Ed Sheeran and Maroon 5, respectively.
And in spring of 2017, I had a “boyfriend”. A guy I liked, that liked me back. I don’t consider him a boyfriend because I didn’t think we ever went on a date but a lot of my friends, my parents, and him all thought we had. So oops. Also that framework dissolves rather quickly when you realize I never got a date with boy #2 either. And my most recent boyfriend in college…so basically, we don’t pull that thread.
But this guy was so fun! We were on the same debate team throughout elementary school and we were in the same classes so we spent a lot of time together. But what made it fun was how much like a movie it was. Because there was a soundtrack and a plot. The soundtrack was Ed Sheeran’s “Castle on the Hill”. He loved that song, playing it almost daily after class and before each debate practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays - I have an image of the lyric video visuals seared into my head still to this day. And the plot was that we passed notes.
Scraps of paper ripped from assignments. Index cards folded over so many times that the pencil and pen markings smudged. Call it cringy but I found, find, it really cute. I still have all the notes tucked away or scrapbooked somewhere. Because we didn’t have phones, that was our version of texting and I loved it. That thrill is the sensation I get when I listen to this playlist. And it’s also the same sensation you get when you watch a nice romcom, all warm and fuzzy.
Of course, he and I aren’t friends anymore if you might’ve guessed. He doesn’t take too kindly to me not believing that we’ve dated and so one day he DMed me on Instagram calling me some quite profane and rude names. He’s since deleted/unsent them and while he’s never apologized, he did extend an olive branch to hang out one day. And then promptly unsent that message and we haven’t talked since. I don’t let it sully the good memories that correlate with this playlist :)
Nowadays (really just after 2020), I don’t really create playlists anymore. Especially since I’m mostly trying to just expand my insights and tunes consumption overall - I either create a set on demand and then after it cycles through let the Apple Music infinite shuffle work its magic or I just do the same one song (ie. “brutal” by Olivia Rodrigo in summer 2021) command a time period/activity event for me.
So what’d I ask ChatGPT about? Well. I was curious why, despite this whole host of various emotional stories that I connote various songs to, is it that I get sad whenever I listen to music (especially these playlists). Like heavy heart, heart ache, and sometimes want-to-cry sad.
And ChatGPT said:
That deep ache you feel when listening to music tied to old memories is actually a well-documented emotional response—there’s even a term for it: nostalgic sadness. It’s a bittersweet emotion that blends happiness and longing, and music has a unique ability to trigger it because of how our brains process sound and memory.
When you listen to music from a specific time in your life, it activates the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex—areas responsible for memory and emotion. Music acts almost like a time machine, transporting you back to those exact feelings and moments. But the sadness often comes from realizing that those times are gone and can’t be revisited in the same way. Even if the memories themselves are happy, there’s an inherent sense of loss because you’re aware that you’ve changed, life has moved on, and those moments now exist only in your memory.
The emotional intensity also depends on how formative those years were. It sounds like the playlists you revisit map onto some really pivotal coming-of-age experiences—first relationships, new places, evolving identities. Music tied to those moments carries extra weight because it shaped who you are now.
And then there’s the idea of semantic memory—over time, music becomes a symbol of the era it represents for you. Even hearing a happy, upbeat song can make you feel a deep ache if it’s tied to something that’s out of reach now. It’s not just the memory—it’s the longing for the person you were back then, the people you were close to, or even the sense of possibility and innocence from those times.
And I thought that was beautiful and interesting. I know a lot about linguistics. And a lot about how people interact, ya know humanities and social sciences and all that. But in the past couple of days, I’ve been learning that a lot of my friends are studying cognitive thinking and more introspective psychology type of topics - and I’m curious to learn more. To be able to talk to them in greater detail and perhaps also to understand myself more.
Because I feel that I think a lot and quite deeply but then I reach a block or impasse that kind of results in me not knowing how to move forward. Maybe this new knowledge will allow me to unlock more complexity and nuance in my thinking. We’ll see. It all depends on if I find an interesting nonfiction book that’s like “Psych for Dummies”.